


rooftop

by abeillle



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Universe, High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8039620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abeillle/pseuds/abeillle
Summary: Maybe this change is temporary, a byproduct of some jam in Lance’s internal circuitry that he could solve if only he knew how to fix Lance as well as he could rile him up.





	rooftop

**Author's Note:**

> This is quick and unbeta'd, I just needed to get this idea off my chest. Enjoy!

When Keith finally finds him, Lance is not in the cafeteria, nor is he in one of the strange Myrian classrooms. He’s lying on the school-building roof with his eyes closed, tipping the contents of a water bottle onto his face in jolted increments. 

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” grumbles Keith, sitting down beside Lance. “Also, stop pouring water over yourself, weirdo. I brought lunch.” He slides a tray of food across the concrete until it’s touching the fabric of Lance’s school uniform shirt. 

“Hey,” says Lance, opening his eyes in a flutter of lashes and pushing himself upright on his elbows. He carefully lifts the proffered tray onto his lap. “You’re ruining my zen concentration. My cosmic forces are all misaligned now. However shalt thou repayest me?”

“Your what forces? And isn’t bring you lunch repayment enough?” Keith peels open a container -- with a healthy degree of caution, of course, alien food is usually a hit-or-miss sort of thing -- and watches out of the corner of his eye as Lance wipes off the residual water with his sleeve and begins to pick at his food. “No -- never mind. More importantly. What were you doing with the water?”

Lance makes a tiny, stunted movement, as if he had planned to shrug but decided to give it up halfway. “I missed the rain, I guess. I just wanted to feel water on my face. Wow. That sounds pretty stupid, in hindsight.”  

Keith agrees, but something melancholy in the set of Lance’s shoulders tells him to keep this thought to himself. 

“Have you noticed that none of the planets Allura’s ever sent us on as exchange students _ ever _ have rain?” continues Lance. “It’s a travesty. I mean, come on, it even  _ looks  _ like it could rain here!” He motions at the dull grey sky hanging over them as if to point out the sheer injustice of the whole thing. “Myrians, man. They’re a perfectly civilized people. They should have thought of having rain by now.”

“That’s not even how anything  _ works _ , idiot,” says Keith, although he knows Lance is only half-serious at most. He shoves another spoonful of food in his mouth, to stop himself from blurting out something inane and redundant about, say, the water cycle, or how all the water on Myria is located underground. Fighting with Lance is stupid, as is their entire so-called rivalry, but avoiding arguments with him is like playing minesweeper blindfolded. 

Lance doesn’t retort with a witty comment, which is pleasantly refreshing, but it also tips several notable alarms in Keith’s brain. “Listen,” he starts, and blanks out when Lance’s eyes swivel to meet his. The main act of the lunch is some sort of stewed meat in a thin sauce that reminds Keith of unset strawberry jell-o. It’s not too bad, the problem is, it tints Lance’s mouth a flattering shade of red. Keith’s stomach is doing giddy-flips. He does not like being reminded that Lance is pretty; it is, alongside Zarkon and the public school system, one of the dreaded things that make his life substantially more difficult than is probably strictly necessary. He stabs his fork into the tray. Half the tines break off.

“Uh, listen. Lance,” he tries again, keeping his eyes on the decapitated fork. “I just called you an idiot. You didn’t swat at me or anything. Are you feeling ill?”

“Yeah, go on, mistake my generosity for a case of the space flu,” says Lance, and flops back down on the concrete, apparently done with his half-eaten lunch. The line of his mouth slopes downwards. He shuts his eyes. “Maybe I’m just feeling especially benevolent today.”

“Sure,” Keith tells him agreeably, for a lack of anything better to say. Lance is acting strange, almost solemn. Where is the loud, animated Lance he knows and trusts? Keith is aware that people inevitably change; Shiro, after all, left Earth as his mischievous upperclassman and returned a jaded veteran. He wonders if Lance is changing. Space will do that to a person, he thinks. But maybe this change is temporary, a byproduct of some jam in Lance’s internal circuitry that he could solve if only he knew how to fix Lance as well as he could rile him up. He’s never really felt the need to be eloquent or friendly or caring, but he watches Lance lie still and wishes he could summon the words that would make everything right. He  _ wants _ Lance to be happy. He realizes, with a twist of his stomach, that he would personally fistfight every Galra soldier in this galaxy and all the neighbouring systems as well, just to make Lance happy.

It’s a big thought. Keith feels it echoing stupidly in his heart, and he suddenly feels like he could take on Zarkon himself. He snaps the fork clean in two, then kicks the feeling a few times and and waits for it to stop twitching. Then he lies down beside Lance.

Lance opens his eyes and watches Keith settle down. “Joining the pity party?”

“The what?”

“I’m homesick,” says Lance, simply.

For a minute Keith thinks that it’s a peculiar non-sequitur, but then the pieces snap into place. “For the Garrison, or for -- home?” The bell rings in the building below, but they both ignore it.

“For Earth, I guess. It’s stupid, I don’t -- I don’t know. There’s all these planets that are so similar, but. They’re never really the same. I miss our sun, and hot dogs, and oak trees, and my mother, and my father, and my sisters. I even miss everyone from the Garrison, even the assholes. Even Iverson. Iverson has  _ nothing  _ on Myrian teachers. Or Taryl ones, remember that? And -- all the constellations I grew up with. You go to the stars and then they’re nothing like you’ve always known.” He closes his eyes again. “I miss rain.”

Keith can’t exactly relate, but Lance’s words, so uncharacteristically soft, make him want to bend the laws of physics and and turn the gray expanse of Myria into New Mexico. “Do you want me to pour more water on you?” he says instead, intelligently.

“No,” says Lance. “But. If you wanted to stay up here, for a bit. With me. That would be nice.”

“All right,” says Keith, and lets himself smile, because Lance isn’t watching. He doesn’t think he’s ever been good to Lance, but this is something. It’s a start. It’s a step in a better direction. He can see it now, unfurling slowly; a place where he can say what he means and mean what he says. The future, for once, is something he wants to build, rather than something he feels subjected to. He can’t bring Lance rain or hotdogs or oak trees, but he can lie under the vast grey dome of the Myrian sky, while all the Myrians and paladins rush about in the building below, and he thinks, they’re all so unknowingly unlucky, because he’s the only one lying next to Lance. 

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: klance: the shoujo anime


End file.
